The Plan International Nigeria, an NGO, has empowered about 600,000 girls on Menstrual Health Management (MHM) between 2021 and 2023 in three local government areas of Bauchi State.

Mr Nasiru Mohammed, the state Senior Programme Manager of the organisation, made this known at a Plan’s project Close-out meeting in Bauchi.

He said in two years of the project, supported by Kimberly-Clark Foundation (Kotex), different approaches provided immediate response and built resilience through empowerment of girls with critical information relevant to MHM.

“The Project adopted adolescent programing, community influencing, and community and mass media messaging.

“We reached 33 public schools across the three local government areas of Bauchi, Katagum and Ningi for awareness creation on menstruation.

“To promote menstrual health and help address issues around stigma and challenges that arise as a result of menstruation which is a natural phenomenon in girls,” hhe said.

According to him, initially the project targeted 200,000 in the selected local government areas.

“We directly reached out to 9,000 females, while 191,000 individuals were reached indirectly.

“A total of 14,616 were reached directly excluding those reached via social media messaging and a total of 589,725 were reached.”

Mohammed noted that the project was keen on social inclusion; while people living with disabilities were reached across communities of intervention using different platforms.

On her part, Dr Helen Idion, the Director, Programme Quality and Innovation of Plan Internationational, said that the project was implemented in collaboration with Community Initiative for the promotion of health and education sector as a partner.

According to her, the project was aimed at increasing the individual and collective agency of women and adolescent girls to exercise their rights to gender responsive, adolescent friendly and inclusive menstrual hygiene management.

“This project has lasted for three years in the three local governments and yet in these three years, the things we have heard, the joy we have heard from school girls has given us a lot of excitement,” she said.

Idion explained that lack of materials, such as hygiene pads, access to water, gender disaggregated toilets at schools and other public places, have further compounded the problem, thereby leading to a lot of psycho-social challenges.

The Director of Primary Health Care, Mr Suleiman Madugu, said the project recorded tremendous achievements and succeeded in making adolescent girls have better knowledge of how to manage menstrual health hygiene properly without stress.

“The project of menstrual hygiene management was supported by Kimberly Clark Corporation and implemented by CIPRHES in collaboration with the Bauchi state Primary Health Care Development Agency (BSPHCDA) and relevant MDAs.

“It has inculcated the knowledge and best practice of proper menstrual hygiene management of our women of reproductive age in schools as well as out of school adolescent girls in the state,” he said.